ZIMBABWE: FUNERAL OF VICE PRESIDENT JOSHUA NKOMO скачать в хорошем качестве

ZIMBABWE: FUNERAL OF VICE PRESIDENT JOSHUA NKOMO

(5 Jul 1999) English/Nat Thousands of Zimbabweans turned out on Monday to bury their Vice-President and liberation war hero, Joshua Nkomo. Nkomo, who died last week after a long battle with cancer, was laid to rest in Heroe's Acre in Harare. Among the mourners was President Robert Mugabe who paid tribute to Nkomo as a hero of the people. Vice President Joshua Nkomo, hailed as the father of the fight against colonial rule, was buried Monday amid tribal ceremony and military pomp. Foreign dignitaries from eight African countries and Britain, the former colonial power, and tens of thousands of mourners crammed Heroes' Acre, a shrine outside Harare for the state funeral. Nkomo died from cancer Thursday, aged 82. President Robert Mugabe praised Nkomo for his tireless work to free the former British colony of Rhodesia which became independent Zimbabwe in 1980. SOUNDBITE: (English) "In order to pay both our national and individual respects and last tributes to one who was great amongst us so dedicated to our liberation so fatherly and loving so famous and yet so simple and down to earth" SUPERCAPTION: President Robert Mugabe For over nearly five decades Nkomo fought for freedom and economic emancipation from white domination. Tribal dancers beating drums and carrying traditional shields and spears led a military cortege to Nkomo's grave at the terraced shrine where nearly 40 political and former guerrilla leaders are buried. Choirs sang hymns and liberation songs. Some mourners wore tee shirts and waved flags showing a charging bull, the symbol of Nkomo's defunct Zimbabwe African People's Union party, which merged with Mugabe's rival Zimbabwe African National Union in 1988. Nkomo founded the first black political party in the then Rhodesia in 1952 but never achieved his burning ambition of becoming the first black leader when Zimbabwe gained independence after a bitter guerrilla war that left nearly 40,000 mostly black fighters dead. In the first democratic parliamentary elections in 1979, Nkomo's party won just 20 seats to the 57 majority captured by Mugabe. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...